SGRoA: Moonlight, S1 E13: Fated To Pretend

Ooh, lucky number 13! As a witch and always an odd one out (thanks, it's the autism!), I like 13. I don't have high hopes after last week's vampire genocide reveal, because let's be honest: that was one of the silliest things this very silly show has done. I guess they didn't want to fill in with another Jack the Ripper episode, eh? I mean, it was good enough for Babylon 5, but not for you?

that's right, I'm THIS BIG a nerd

Oh, right, Mick's still "human". He's brushing his teeth and sleeping in a bed and drinking coffee! I don't care! If you hate being a vampire so much, if you think it's so immoral and terrible and you simply can't stand yourself, maybe consider ending it yourself? Like, Mick is a coward. I don't think suicide for humans is a valid choice - I mean, people make it, but it's terrible, and as someone who's been there, I do know it gets better, and that it's very possible to turn everything around - but a vampire? A VAMPIRE. If you fucking hate it that fucking much, jump in a fire, my dude! Ask a friend to cut your head off! Make a Rube Goldberg device!

But for the love of everything in this universe, STOP WHINING ABOUT IT.

Anyway. Mick's at the beach with Beth. And he's STILL COMPLAINING. Beth says it's so nice to see him so happy, and it's like a whole new him, but he's all "NO! It's the OLD ME - from before the CURSE that so vilely affected my LIFE and that I hate SO MUCH I never do anything about it!"

So Beth is totes over Josh already, because she's in love with Mick, and has been for a while. This scene would be cute if any of these people were likable, but here we are.

Josef is remodeling his blown-apart office. Good there wasn't any structural damage from those giant military grenades that killed everyone. Sounds very likely. He has two interior designers pitching him, and he hates everything they suggest, and then he yells at them to go away as Mick comes in. They were both women, and as they leave, he says, "Remodeling is a bitch," making sure to look at the women as he says "bitch" all super drawn out. Thanks, Josef, we know you're a misogynist. We don't need reminding.

He follows it up by asking if Mick has "sealed the deal" with Beth yet. Fuckin' gross, man. And this whole scene is pointless, it just gets Mick to "admit" he's in love with Beth. Yeah, no shit, you've been stalking her since she was four - a fact against this relationship that NEVER COMES UP. The age gap comes up, the inter-species concerns come up, but never that Mick has had a weird obsession with Beth since she was traumatized by his ex-wife. Is this a function of time? Like, did we just not think any of this was noteworthy in 2007? Or is this show just very, very bad? YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Beth gets a call from her editor, who's still micro-managing her and calls her down to the Buzzwire office after asking where she's been all day. But uh-oh! Editor - whose name is Maureen - is dead at the ransacked office. Beth is screaming about it, and I can completely understand: who else is going to check her time cards now?!?!?!?!

deal with it

Josh's replacement shows up at the crime scene, because the ADA always goes to crime scenes. He immediately insults Buzzwire and Mick, and I like him. Maureen's computer was missing, and Beth thinks it must be related. Fair assumption, for once. Beth and Mick go to the morgue to talk about the body with Guillermo; Maureen was around a vamp just before her death, but was shot in the head. Mick says the vamp shot her to make it look like a human crime, and he's probably right because the writing is terrible, but we'll see. I'd throw in a vamp red herring there, but I, like, know how to structure a mystery, so....

Mick and Beth then head off to Maureen's apartment. Beth says Maureen was obsessive about backing stuff up and goes off to look for a thumb drive. She finds it in a box of tampons after a weird digression about where people hide stuff, and then the cat comes out! CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT - I'm sorry, I'm distracted.

They take the thumb drive to that vampire tech nerd, because the files are encrypted. The password is the cat's name, of course. Some diet guru is dead of a heart attack (no duh, that's what dieting does, it ruins your heart), but that's not enough to kill over. A political scandal looks more promising, but what's this about Josef? Sexual assault and harassment? Alas, no: charity fraud. Mick is convinced it's not about Josef, but how likely is that?

They go to check it out, and turns out, no, Josef didn't kill her. He makes at least three sex "jokes" while they talk.

Next up, the congressman. I think. Look, y'all, I have plans today and it's 8am, so I'm not entirely awake, but I figure, that's probably the best way to watch this thing. They show up at a press conference, I guess? Oh, wait, he's a mayoral candidate. Which is big when you get to cities like LA. I've been vaguely following the NYC mayoral race and I live in Aurora, CO. (My mayor sucks absolute balls, thank god we're not that big yet.)

Mick tries to talk to the dude, but his wrangler tells him that he'll have to leave and tries to dodge him. Mick just follows them both to the door, telling Dude that someone thinks he set up the accident that kills his wife. Handler says that's ridics and they leave.

Beth is at the diet guru's place, trying to pin the death of the spokesmodel on the donuts, but Beth, the science has been in for decades: it doesn't matter what food was on the diet, the act of intentionally restricting to lose weight will weaken your heart and make you prone to heart attacks. It's why anorexic people die of heart attacks. It's why a lot of fat people die of heart attacks - we've been dieting and weight-cycling our whole lives in some instances, and our hearts can't handle that. (If you think the science isn't there, and I'm making this up? Please see yourself out to the Google and look it the fuck up, thanks. I don't do fat liberation 101.)

They go to check out the spokesmodel's body, and she has liposuction scars that aren't noted in the autopsy. Beth is off to check out the autopsy report (...sure, why not?) and runs into ADA Ben. He's pissed that they're investigating (obviously) and tries to remind them that any evidence they get will be inadmissible, probably, and they're just fucking up. But Ben! This is TV! That will never happen, because these are our protagonists!

Mick is off to investigate...something else, I wasn't paying attention, and the guy runs. I have to say, the direction of this episode would make it a mostly fun little romp if - again - any of these characters were likable, or if the show hadn't been so dumb it eliminated all the good will I might have had for it.

Oh, Mick went to the valet who handed the mayoral candidate - Morrow - the keys to his car the night his wife died. Morrow was drunk. Mick's here because Maureen's computer showed that Valet sent her a tip about it - but Valet says he absolutely did not, he's working without papers, he knew Morrow was drunk and gave him the keys anyway to avoid a fight and he has zero interest in being involved. Mick's confused, and calls computer geek dude. Someone spoofed Valet's email.

Oh, it's the little blonde staffer that we've seen in both campaign scenes. Takes everyone else seven minutes to figure it out, but I guess they're not really in a tv show. Anyway, she runs up to the building's roof to ... commit suicide? ... because she ... spoofed an email and told the press about her murderous boss?

Marcia from the Brady Bunch saying "Sure, Jan"

I wonder if these writers have ever met people? Like, is this one of those "I fed 1000 pages of Forever Knight and Dark Shadows episodes into this neural net and asked it to write me a series" and Moonlight popped out? If that's the case, kudos! But this was 2007, so...yeah.

Anyway. Mick saves her, and she's Morrow's daughter? And somehow this means that Morrow didn't kill Maureen, so it's back to the diet guru? Ok, sure, why not. Take me on a ride, neural net.

Beth, Mick, and Ben go interview the plastic surgeon who did the lipo on Spokesmodel; he has three complaints about excessive blood loss after surgeries. I'm guessing vamp, and I'm right, and there's a fight in the office, because that'll go great for him. They make it look like Beth is going to get sucked right there, then a commercial break, and Guillermo is pulling glass desk shards out of Mick. But he's done the legwork our "heroes" haven't: the doc's real business is selling rare blood to vamps.

Oh, the vamp doc took Beth and Ben. Does Ben have a good blood type, too? He must. There's a lot of getting-ready nonsense that we don't need, and Josef shows up as Mick is taking all his weapons out of hiding, and there are literally 7 minutes left of this episode, so wtf? Please go rescue people instead of having in-depth convos.

Oh, here we go: Mick begs Josef to turn him vampy again so he can rescue Beth. MORE WHINING.

ugh. have to watch Lestat as a palate cleanser

So Mick's a vamp again (and there apparently is no lore about the strength of the sire, how weak someone would be right after turning, the need for a victim right away - no, it's fine, that's fine, tell me more about the taste of blood types, tho) and he saves everyone, the end. Ben was kept blindfolded the whole time so he doesn't see or know anything, but he also isn't going to investigate the bodies around him, I'm guessing. Beth and her bad extensions are sad about the re-fangening because he did it for her (heart emoji heart emoji). A lot of pointless feelings talk that could have been expended on the actual mystery, rehashing shit we've already talked about. And then they rip off a great song that Buffy already used ("Lucky Ones", it's on the first Buffy soundtrack CD that I played over and over and over for like a year in the late 90s) and Beth is sucking his face and then she leaves and it's over! YAY!

I wish I knew Divia was going to show up on this show. She'd make such a good impact.

See you next week, Snowflakes!